New World Computing - Not Well

Thanks to Blues News for pointing out a recent post on the Celestial Heavens fansite discussing the continuing demise of New World Computing, the creators of the Might And Magic series, saying that the 3DO-owned developers, caught in that company's recent bankruptcy, have had their separate office in Solvang, CA, closed, and are running out of time for a third party to buy up the Might and Magic license from 3DO and re-employ the team. Elsewhere, fan Charles Watkins has published a discussion piece about how the franchise might be reborn, suggesting: "The conservative approach to product planning has a strong appeal. By sticking with a successful formula, you feel you are taking fewer risks so your profits seem more secure. And the less you change, the less effort is required. It is this mentality that brought Heroes down."

Hope They Get Bought

[Vokbain]

Its been a couple years since I last played, but I always liked their games.
I'd hate to see them disappear for good.

P.S. Can we get a mod in here?

Honestly, studios like this need to fail

[Rakthar]

While Heroes may be a flagging series, and it is all too easy to blame "a risk averse culture" for the complete lack of innovation or progress in the series. I always look at situations like this with quite some skepticism.

There are many factors when it comes to original works that determine whether the outcome will be enjoyable or not. Management, corporate culture, the mix of the team, the finances, all of that comes together and formes a unit that either can produce quality titles, or can't. The games industry seems a bit more analogous to the Music industry, in that failures are quite expensive, and successes not necessarily incredibly profitable, than the Movie industry which is a bit more formulaic and stable. In that regard, much like there are some artists that continue to churn out real stinkers, it seems that some game development studios also walk that same path.

I think if there's one thing these folks have shown repeatedly, it's that they cannot produce quality titles anymore, can no longer innovate, and even their flagship series has now slid into mediocrity. Another company that shared a similar fate was 3DO. Trip Hawkins, founder and millionaire, attempted to keep them alive time after time, by injecting money into the company. They even went from being a hardware company to a software company, where Trip claimed the real money was. Yet, no matter how much things changed, their games were quite sub-par. What does that tell you? Whatever problems existed at 3DO, Trip Hawkins was unable to address them despite his cash infusions. Whether they were personell based, or budgetary (perhaps he was just keeping them going on life support) the end result was that time after time, the product that they shipped was sub par.

This too has become the legacy of New World Computing, and while I am sad to see a studio close, I think this is a necessary thing. If the games industry is to move forward in maturity, a certain bare minimum standard needs to be set for what is acceptable. The heroes games aren't bad, but they are quite dated, and clearly aren't moving as many units as they used to. Not only that, but the strategic game market has become a victim of changing tastes, and while Strategy games are still viable, they are approaching Niche status in some ways.

New World chose not to reach out (and when they did, to reach out poorly - Heroes of Might and Magic, the game that makes the original Tomb Raider look GOOD), and paid the price for it. They remained in a stagnant market and their console efforts were half-hearted at best, almost as if they knew they were going to fail from the start. I think sometimes it's best if dysfunctional teams like this are broken up, and things simply started anew. I have no doubt that there's plenty of talented folks at New World who will do far better at different studios where their talents may actually contribute to good products.

What?

[Inoshiro]

The original Tomb Raider was good, being an elegant mix of puzzle solving, tomb raiding, and adventure. It was well balanced, with huge levels to explore and puzzles to solve. It's aged fairly well, even if the sequels devolved into pointless kill fests.

Heroes of Might and Magic was also a great series. While I haven't played #4, I spent many hours on #2 and #3. It was one of the first games I can remember using MP3 compression for the sound and music in the game. The questing was much fun. I'm glad

Re:Honestly, studios like this need to fail

[DuckDodgers]

It's funny you should say that.

I found Heroes of Might and Magic III and Heroes of Might and Magic IV to rank in my top five favorite computer games. I spent countless hours playing.

How were they conservative and formulaic? Most turn based strategy games of a similar nature, as far as I know, copied 3do and not vice versa!

Sunk by 3DO, I'm afraid

[Anonymous Coward]

3DO owned New World. It wasn't New World's lack of innovation that sunk them, it was their parent going spectacularly bankrupt.

Conservative - The Game Wave of the Future

[DrWho520]

I think we've been seeing the conservative manner of game production a great deal lately. I would have to call the latest wave of game production to be, at best, uninspired. There are the occasional gems in the PS2 library, Halo deffinately kicks (for an FPS) and, as far as I am concerned, just about anything from Nintendo's camp is gold. That's Nintendo, not GCN.

As the videogame market has overtaken the movie industry in profits, it has taken on more and more of that industries characteristics.

-Games are now extremely expensive to produce. Enter the Matrix at est. 31.2 million [smh.com.au]

-Games now have much more style than substance. BMX XXX, depending upon your opinion of style. Or the majority of the XBox library

-Games are becoming formulaic. how many more Tony Hawk sequels can we have?

-Games are produced by large development houses that are in it for the profit derived from the "safe bet" and not "risky innovation." i lost count on what SSX(EA), Dave Mirra(Acclaim), Tony Hawk (Activision), and Pokemon (Nintendo) we were on

Don't get me wrong, there are some real gems out now. GTA, MetalGear and Metroid Prime are all standouts. I personally feel a lot of "nitch" games are the most entertaining because they break the molds that are becoming more prominent today. Pikmin, Eternal Darkness, Super Monkey Ball, ICO, the reimerging Rygar and Maximo (you know its Ghosts n' Goblins/Ghouls n Ghosts) are all different from what's out there. But, as long as we are sheep, this is the way video games will be made. If you are not willing to risk buying a non-formulaic game, why should one be produced? Nintendo is still pumping out some great stuff, but they do not have the market share anymore. (Nintendo is to video games what Sundance was to movies at one point in time.) I already have a DVD player for movies. I wanna play video games. Animal Crossing and ICO not the next 5 Devil May Cry clones that are a shadow of the original.

I honestly never got into the series...

[bluemeep]

Despite being the flamboyant RPG lover that I am, I barely managed to break the surface in any of the Might & Magic games. The only real successes I had were in leaving the first town in M&M3 and advancing the plot approximately one step in M&M6. I guess I'm just happy to have the series in my collection...them and the giant print of the M&M6 box art I won in a promotion for the game. Swank.

Any public talk about price?

[xanderwilson]

Only played one of their games but I enjoyed it. I wonder if, for someone thinking about starting a game studio, a purchase like these licenses would be a great, relatively inexpensive way to get started in the industry.